End gender based violence at workplaces!!!
HB women workers and other in a rally on international human rights day.
- Women in Pakistan make 49% of the total population. Of the working women, only 26% are employed in the formal sector while 74% are in the informal sector.
- Nevertheless, women in the informal sector contribute Rs400 billion to the national exchequer annually through their wages but in return get no recognition from the state.
- Unlike their colleagues in the formal sector, the informal sector’s women or workers are not protected by any law due to which they remain prone to violence and harassment.
- Despite putting in more effort into work, women earn less than 34% than their male counterparts and in the informal sector are not entitled to any leaves, social security or pension.
- Also women of all ages have been the victims of harassment and violence. Reasons: deep-rooted misogyny, victim blaming and weaker laws. It’s high time that we demand mother’ state to end gender-based discrimination even at it own end.
- Despite these gender-based issues being raised every once in a while, the state has not made any satisfactory progress in battling these crises. There is not a single labor law specific to women in the country.
- The Supreme Court has already termed The Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010 “just another piece of cosmetic legislation” that is blinkered in its application to sexual acts while the scope of harassment is much bigger.
- Acc to SC, harassment, be it on the basis of race, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation or age, casts a devastating effect on a person and violates their dignity while this law does not live up to expectations when is applied in a such case.
- Acc to a Dawn survey, 53% of women know about this law while 46% don’t yet 83% of them say that some men believe they will get away which is why they continue as harassers.
- https://infogram.com/sexual-harassment-at-workplace-1h7v4pxg33lz2k0
- While the violence against women is not just limited to beating, it is also in the form of paying them less than men, not allowing them to unionize and not extending them written employment contracts.
- ILO’s C190 Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 is a ray of hope to make thing better for women at workplaces at least and to encourage their participation in the mainstream which of course will yield optimum results in battling toxic mindsets
- On the occasion of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women 2021, we demand the state to ratify C190 and be like a mother in a true sense which does not discriminate among its children. We hope that our voices will be heard.
- We demand that women, be it in formal or informal sectors, be given equal wages, maternity and menstruation leaves, paid holidays, childcare facilities at their workplaces and be treated fairly in every sphere of life.
